


the center of the universe

by saphinias



Category: Bandom, Fueled by Ramen, fun.
Genre: F/M, also his mom is generally awesome in this fic, and cooks eggs, and his dad defends his honor, basically nate is a momma's boy, sorry about these tags they went nowhere and are not useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:21:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saphinias/pseuds/saphinias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate flies to Arizona to visit his parents, reeling after his breakup with Rachel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the center of the universe

**Author's Note:**

> This is really all over the place and ends abruptly, sorry about that. I just wanted to get some things I was thinking about him out. Hope you enjoy it anyway!

After he and Rachel broke up, Nate went home.  He needed his mom and he hadn't been home in longer than he would have liked.  He arranged to stay there for a few days and flew in just two days after the break up.  His mom met him at the airport, her arms already raised in preparation for a hug.  He almost cried.

She drove him home (it did not escape his notice that he had never replaced his childhood house in Arizona as 'home' with anything else) and he was quiet during the drive, letting her talk.  She told him about the neighbors, who had gotten divorced and which kids went to what college, she told him about bitter old Mrs. Morrison down the road (still as mean as ever, apparently), and told him how his father had finally gone to see a doctor about his cough.  Nate told her to stop worrying, it was probably just a cough, nothing more.

"Honey, at our age it's never _just_ a cough."

And that made Nate worry, because his mother always seemed to be right.

They got home and he carried his things up to his room, completely unchanged from when he had left at eighteen, and went back downstairs to watch tv.  His mother sat next to him after a few minutes, handing him a glass of grapefruit juice.  He wrinkled his nose but took a sip anyway, before he put it down.

"Is this about Rachel?" she asked.  She knew.  He hadn't told her yet, but she knew.  Nate wondered if being a parent meant you understood everything.  Probably not.  It seemed like it, though.

Nate nodded, felt the stomach-swooping realization that they were no longer together hit him all over again.  It brought tears to his eyes.  He continued to look straight at the television, trying not to give himself away.  His mom saw, though.  She always say.  She pulled him to her and Nate collapsed into her, crying.  It felt better to cry in his mother's arms, though.  He felt like maybe he could get through this after all.

Because a life without Rachel...he didn't know if he could go back to that.  She was such a larger-than-life presence that it had come to feel like she was the center of his existence.  That she was the most important thing in his life, that it wasn't even his life, it was Rachel's and he was just priveleged to be there.  To be loved by her.  He had never felt so lucky as when she smiled at him, as when she kissed him or touched him.

But now she was done.  Said that she had moved onward and he had stayed still.  If he had known that she was advancing he would have come, too.  Why didn't she _tell_ him?  She could have just _told_ him!

He realized that he was voicing his thoughts aloud when his mom started shushing him.

"You couldn't have gone with her, honey, it sounds like you two just grew apart."

"She left me behind, Mom.  She said she loved me, how could she just leave me?" Nate asked, fully expecting an answer, the answer that would make it all alright again.

"I don't know why people fall out of love, Nate.  Relationships just don't work out sometimes, and it doesn't have to be anybody's fault," she told him.   Nate shook his head.

"But it's _my_ fault.  That's what she said!  I couldn't keep up, I -"

"Nate," she said, her voice steely, "It was _not_ your fault, no matter what she told you.  She made a choice, and the choice was hers and hers alone.  You've got to know that you did nothing wrong, Nate."

He nodded, and almost believed.

 

-

 

 

A few days later at breakfast, he finally asked his mom the question that'd been nagging at him for the past couple of days.

"Mom?  How do you identify?"

"Hm?" she asked, not turning from the eggs she was scrambling.  "What do you mean, honey?"

"Like, you could be a straight, cisgender female.  That kind of thing."

She scraped the eggs onto a plate.  "Oh, I don't know.  I've never really thought about it, it's just not important to me, you know?"

Nate nodded and grabbed some eggs.  "Yeah."  He ate in silence for a minute and then spoke again, "Rachel asked me how I identified once."

"What did you say?" she asked, because that was the question that he so obviously wanted to answer.

"I told her I identified as Nate.  She told me that wasn't how it worked."

His mom sat down next to him at the island, "Ah, she's one of those, is she?"  Nate nodded.  "Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting to sort people into categories.  It's human nature and it makes things a hell of a lot easier.  But I just don't believe that everyone fits into a category.  People are more than just their sexuality, they're more than what gender they identify as."

"Yeah..." Nate muttered.  "Yeah.  What about their personalities?  In the end that's what matters, not what they look like or who they like.  Their personality is what really makes them _them_!" Nate said it like an epiphany, like a breakthrough.  It finally clicked in his mind, what he believed in.

"Exactly!" his mother agreed, and waved her fork around a bit too enthusiastically, hitting Nate square in the eye with a bit of scrambled egg.  They laughed until the eggs got cold.

 

-

 

 

He talked with his father about what happened with Rachel that night.  His dad had to hold back from saying nasty things about her.  Nate was glad he did, because he still loved her.  (Too much, probably.)

By the time it was time for his flight back to New York he was ready to leave for once.  He felt better having talked everything through, and he saw a clear path out of this mess.  He would point himself in the right direction and see where it took him, where it took the band.  He would be okay, and that day may come sooner rather than later.

(But he did not go back to Arizona until he was sure he was over Rachel, because he knew his dad would trash-talk her.)

(He did.  Nate was okay.)


End file.
